Second City Mock Offseason 2.0

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We now know who the GM is and that Chud is gone to Cleveland. Time for another round of mock offseason:

COACHING CHANGES:

Offensive Coordinator: Ken Whisenhunt

- I'd prefer Norv Turner, but it looks as if he'll be following Chud to Cleveland. That said, the idea of promoting Mike Shula scared me for multiple reasons. I like him as QB coach for one, and two, his record as O.C. in Tampa was awful. Whisenhunt did great work with Ben Roethlisberger early in his career in Pittsburgh and Ben and Cam are very similar in the way they throw the football. I actually think that offense suits Cam better than Chud's offense does. Whisenhunt has has great offenses everywhere he's been as long as he's had a top flight QB to work with.

Special Teams: Dave Toub

- Reports indicate he has already interviewed with Rivera for the job and possibly a position as assistant head coach. I think we all know there's not a better ST coach in the game than Toub as his resume in Chicago will prove. Give the man whatever he wants.

RELEASE PLAYERS:

- Derek Anderson: Was here due to knowledge of Chud's offense. Expendable now.

- Jimmy Clausen: He's really just occupying a roster spot at this point.

- DeAngelo Williams: Love him to death and would certainly try to trade him first, but I think it's unlikely we can move him when everyone knows we're strapped for cap space.

- Geoff Hangartner: We need a long-term starter and Hangartner has been pretty awful.

- Ron Edwards: Injured all the time, old, and past his prime.

- Chris Gamble: Love him as well, but we showed last year we can get along without him and his cap number is pretty high. Another guy I'd try to trade, but I don't see any takers with his contract.

- Haruki Nakamura: Not a huge savings here, but he's terrible anyway.

RE-STRUCTURE CONTRACTS:

- Jonathan Stewart: A simple matter of moving money around. These things almost never end up costing the player, contrary to what some here seem to think.

- Jordan Gross: This is a must because if he won't work with us he'll likely be cut. I have all ideas he'll want to stick around and accept a simple re-structure to reduce his cap number this year.

- Charles Johnson: Has the biggest contract on the team, so it shouldn't be difficult to convert some base salary into a bonus spread out through the life of the deal or something.

- Charles Godfrey: Same story here. Hopefully between the cuts and these re-structures we'll free up enough cap space to sign our draft picks and bring in at least some mid-level FA's and maybe a starter if we're lucky.

RE-SIGN PLAYERS:

- Dwan Edwards: Played very well for us and would likely come pretty cheap on a 2-year deal.

- Louis Murphy: Bring him back on a 1-year deal for the veteran minimum.

TRADE PLAYERS:

- Jon Beason: I'm torn here, but the fact is we don't have a place for him. Even if he does return fully from injury (which is unlikely) he still will never be his old self playing the weakside. I say we trade him for a 5th or 6th round pick to a team like Denver (Fox would be willing to give him a shot at that price) or maybe Baltimore, where they're looking to replace Ray Lewis. Maybe Gettleman can even ship him to the Giants, who have big linebacker issues.

FREE AGENCY:

- Louis Vasquez, OG, Chargers: The biggest signing, a quality starting guard that will probably command a decent size contract, but not a huge one. This would be where most of our cap space would go, but it'd be worth it as it'd free us up a ton on draft day.

- Delanie Walker, TE, 49ers: A perfect compliment to Greg Olsen. Can do a bit of everything; catch, block, and is an outstanding special teams player to boot. Wouldn't cost much at all.

- Chase Blackburn, LB, Giants: Good linebacker depth and a solid special teams player who has the connection with Gettleman. Would be a nice, cheap addition to the team.

2013 NFL DRAFT:

1st: Jesse Williams, NT, Alabama - This guy is a beast. He's played at the highest level in the SEC and dominated on the best defense in college football. He doesn't have the hype some of the other d-tackles do, but he's a top notch prospect and a day one starter at nose tackle for us.

2nd: Xavier Rhodes, CB, Florida State- With Gamble cut and Munnerlyn a free agent we badly would need a CB in this scenario and Rhodes, should he last this long, is a great prospect with a lot of upside. The hope here is that Josh Norman/Josh Thomas compete for one starting job and Rhodes earns the other.

4th: Quinton Patton, WR, Louisiana Tech- If we're lucky enough to have this guy fall to us in the 4th round we take the money and run. He was a one-man show at La. Tech and at this point in the draft we'd be lucky to have him.

5th: D.J. Swearinger, S, South Carolina- I have all ideas he'll slip on draft day as safeties sometimes tend to do and he's another guy I think has potential to out-perform his draft status.

5th (f/NYG): Cameron Lawrence, OLB, Mississippi State - I'm assuming we get a 5th from Gettleman's old team here for Beason as they have major concerns at linebacker. Lawrence is a guy I feel has sleeper potential and if he's available here he'd be well worth the pick.

7th: Dan Conroy, K, Michigan State - We need a kicker and it's unlikely we'll be willing to invest a pick higher than this into one. Conroy isn't as well known as Caleb Sturgis or even Dustin Hopkins, but he's solid and can be had later in the draft.

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I like it. Would really hate to lose Deangelo but it may need to happen. Really like the draft. Not sure I would take kicker though, but what the heck it's the 7th round. I was think we had a 6th rounder and no 7th round pick though, but I could be wrong.

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Well, I definitely like your coaching hires. I pretty much agree with your FA activity too. In the draft, I can get behind J. Williams in the 1st...I'm still not nearly as down on Hankins as most and still think he'll be a very good player, but I wouldn't be upset if we got Williams instead. Rhodes...I dunno. I'm not sold. I'd rather take a WR in the 2nd than hope and pray someone like Patton drops to the 4th. But IF we could get Patton in the 4th, I'd be all over it. The last three, I don't know much about them but I'd rather we get one of the top Kickers. We don't know what we're giving the Raiders yet, unless the incentive to bump it up to a 6th was ridiculously low it should be a 7th. Murphy did next to nothing for us. Hopefully we'll still have our 6th and can spend that on Sturgis or Hopkins.

Overall, B+ in my opinion.

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Drafting kickers is tricky. Often it's the random undrafted guys who wind up doing the best. I'd rather not invest too high a pick in one. Truth be told, I'd LOVE if we could sign Rob Bironas from the Titans, but he'd want a big contract - for a kicker anyway.

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Even 1st round rookie DTs generally take sometime to get use to the NFL, many struggle. i doubt he would be noticeably better than Edwards out the gate,

We need to come away from this draft with 3 sure fire starters imo

That's tough to do in any draft regardless of position. Especially without a 3rd round pick. If we can get a starting NT and a guy to compete at corner and/or safety with some WR depth I'll be happy.

The only position we can go with that would give us an absolute surefire day one impact starter would be guard with Chance Warmack, but it's relatively easy to find a solid starting guard in any draft and you don't need an elite one to do well. Also, in this scenario I picked up a guard in free agency.

I think Jesse Williams can have the same type of impact for us that J.J. Watt has had for Houston, Aldon Smith for the 49ers, and Janoris Jenkins for the Rams. We have to address DT at some point and this is as good a chance as we're likely to get with several options available.

I just think, comparing the available nose tackle prospects, the gap between Williams and the others that will be there at 14 is wide enough that we shouldn't hesitate. Like I said in another thread, he's BPA and fills our top need.

Some videos below. The second one is from 2011 and he has improved since then. The first is from this year against Tennessee:

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Your argument for releasing Edwards because of injuries is a good one, and think it applies to Stewart also, he has missed a ton of time because of injuries since he was drafted. I might think hard about keeping Williams and trading Stewart.